Why should you pay for a directory submission service?

Nearly every knowledgeable internet business owner and webmaster on the planet knows that in order to improve their rankings in the major search engines, they need one thing: links, and lots of them. Link building services abound online today, whether it’s a directory submission service, a blog posting service or forum posting service; website owners are gobbling up these link building services like a stray dog devours leftovers and scraps that are found in the back alley.

Some website owners, in order to save a few dollars, have taken it upon themselves to perform these link building strategies without the help of the knowledgeable experts; thinking to themselves:

"Why should I pay for a directory submission service when I can do it myself for free?"

In all honesty, you can perform your own link building services, and you don't have to hire a directory submission service for your website’s link building. However, do you really know what you’re getting yourself into?
Even though directory submission services are typically low-cost and comparatively affordable when considering other website promotion and optimization strategies; there’s good reasoning behind hiring a professional directory submitter over performing this link building service yourself.

Directory Submissions are time consuming

The biggest downfall of performing your own directory submissions is that they are excessively time consuming for the novice directory submitter. Whilst a professional directory submitter can perform this link building service quickly because they have done it thousands of time before and have the proper tools to perform directory submissions quickly; the average Joe or Jane website owner will eat up three minutes or more per submission, easily. A professional directory submission service may be able to submit to 100 directories in just over an hour while somebody who is not familiar with the directory submission process will take, with a conservative estimate, over four hours to perform the same 100 directory submissions.

In order to be effective, directory submissions need to be submitted correctly

Novice directory submitters often times fail to adhere to the written and even unwritten guidelines of website directory submissions; which can lead to a wasted effort on your part because if you don’t submit your website to directories in a way that is generally viewed as acceptable by directory owners, regardless of whether or not there are any submission guidelines posted, you will inevitably suffer from a low acceptance rate from the directories.

For instance, a directory submission service understands how to properly form the website’s title and how many words are generally acceptable, how to word the description for better acceptance and which categories to submit to in order to receive the highest acceptance rate while working to get the client the best placement for SEO purposes. A novice directory submitter does not understand these subtle guidelines and will ultimately suffer because of it if they try to submit to directories on their own.

Other pitfalls of 'self-submission' to online directories

If you choose to perform directory submissions yourself to save the minimal amounts required by a directory submission service, there are other things that you will need to be aware of.

For instance, do you have the ability to determine whether a directory is "SEO friendly" and will help your website’s rankings in the search engines? A professional directory submitter can usually pinpoint a worthless directory right away. In fact, many directory submission services have pre-compiled lists of search engine friendly directories that they use on a daily basis so that their clients can rest assured that each and every submission takes place to a directory that will provide SEO benefit.

Do you have the ability to use multiple proxy servers to "mask" your identity during directory submissions? If you’re doing a large number of submissions, any professional directory submitter will tell you that using a proxy server during the submission process is absolutely necessary. There are many directories online that are run by the same company, and during the submission process, your IP address is tracked; if you happen to get flagged because of too many submissions, you’ll end up with a time-consuming hardship on your hands trying to weed out the directories that are prohibiting you from submitting to them.

Now this is not, by any means, an exhaustive list of reasons why you should use a directory submission service for your website’s promotion instead of doing it yourself. While initially it might seem like a good idea to perform directory submissions on your own, after you've spent a few hours on it and have done only a handful of submissions; you’ll better understand how much of a bargain you are getting when you hire a directory submission service for this website link building strategy.

What it all boils down to is this: a directory submission service is offered by professionals who understand how to perform this link building method efficiently and effectively. Unless you've got a lot of time on your hands, this link building strategy is much better when left to the professionals.